Detailed Description
Great research arises out of amazing collaborations. However, establishing collaborations takes work and depends on the context of the institution, the supervision, existing networks, and one's personality. With KnitTogether'25, we invite NLP researchers, particularly junior ones, for an exciting week in the Swiss mountains. While doing hikes and other fun activities, the goal is to get to know each other without hurdles, draft ideas, and discuss research. We want to create a safe space where everyone can talk openly about their work and ideas without fear of being “judged”, not being able to keep up, or being seen as incompetent.
In a community that is growing so fast and dealing with a topic that is gaining more and more societal influence and relevance, we want to join forces and exchange ideas: what can we learn from each other? As the influence of our research in society is increasing due to current developments in our field, we would like to take a critical look at the topic of social factors and bias in NLP/AI. Which groups are under / over represented or represented to their disadvantage? How can we incorporate such factors into modeling? How can we analyze them? We would like to hear the different perspectives of the participants: how do they relate their work to the topic. Using innovative and playful methods, we want to learn more about the work of our peers and thus get to know each other better “scientifically”.
However, we would like to learn something from the topic not only in terms of content but also methodologically, preferably from each other: we will have small peer-to-peer tutorials to learn or deepen our knowledge on the specific method or tool. And finally, we also want to take a critical look at our research and the research in our field on a meta-level. What is important to us? What are the "trends" in the research community that we consider to be promising? Where do we feel that something is going in a wrong direction? We are planning a series of small group discussions and bar-camps as a way of building resonance for our research and a source of new energy and motivation. With KnitTogether, we want to counter the increasingly fast-paced, publication-focused scientific field. Instead of focusing on competition, we want to build an appreciative, mutually supportive community.
In the second part of the week, we would then like to invite more experienced academics who can give concrete feedback on current content-related problems (in an appreciative manner), but from whom we would also like to hear a little more from their perspective in general. How do they deal with problems in academic work? What tips do they have for reviewing or response periods, for conferences, for reading papers, for collaborations? Here, too, we will spend a lot of time exchanging ideas in small groups and learning more about each other in an informal and positive context. Of course, there will still be time for fun and leisure together, cooking, playing, making music, and enjoying the nature and tranquillity of the mountains.